


Children of Kaine: Prologue 3

by KPenDragon



Series: Children of Kaine Saga [3]
Category: Ultimate Spider-Man (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Divergence, Gen, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, M/M, Other, intersex clone, pheromone induced heat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-01
Updated: 2016-09-01
Packaged: 2018-08-12 10:50:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,723
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7931815
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KPenDragon/pseuds/KPenDragon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Life goes on for the Web Warriors as they adjust to cohabitation in the Parker house hold off and on. Flash has to get used to the idea that he might be wheelchair bound for longer than he'd hoped, while Ben runs into some more technical difficulties. Will anyone catch on now that they're stuck together more often, or will Scarlet Spider manage to keep up his double life?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> So still continuing from the last part…this is just mostly more time filler and relationship building. A little fixing for facts that were revealed in _Symbiote Saga_ that weren’t apparent when I wrote the second part; I told you it’d line up eventually. Also, the second section just got away from me as I was going, and actually ended up changing what I was planning on happening in the future. Don’t you just love how stories evolve as they go along? Again, big thanks to my beta MexCraziness; sorry for all the very obvious typos I made you suffer through with this one that you readers now do not need to suffer with ^^;

5 am. The alarm went off. He tried to ignore it, rolling away from the beeping, to cling to the last edges of sleep.

This was the new normal in the Parker household. With 4 teenage boys living there in various degrees of part- to full-time, mornings were an all out war. Things were easier when Miles and Peter stayed at the Academy sure, but even with the three mobile spiders trying to make arrangements, there were a few times when all of them were there at the same time, and though it wasn’t impossible to deal with, it was a bit of a trick.

The alarm sounded again, determined to tear him out of his sleep. He growled, finally giving in to roll over and smash the button to shut it up. Then the arm slid over his eyes as he sighed. He REALLY did not want to be awake right now; at least not wake up to what was his current reality.

A knock came at the door now, “Flash, you awake?” May called through the door just loud enough for him to hear her.

“Yeah,” he gave the half hearted reply.

“Do you need any help getting out of bed?”

He grumbled a little at that sitting up; he wasn’t mad at her for offering, heck she’d been the only one so far that hadn’t seemed to assume that he needed help. He looked down at his right leg, to the supportive cast-equivalent structure he was forced to wear for the duration. He hated that thing with such a strong passion.

“I got it, thanks!” he called back.

He waited the few moments it took to hear the old woman walk away down the hall, no doubt going to check on her other house guests, making sure they were all up, or in the works of getting up. Once he was sure she would be out of ear shot, he grumbled again, reaching over for the wheelchair kept within arm’s length, and began the process of pulling himself into it from the bed.

He was a football player, he wasn’t exactly a stranger to being benched due to an injury, but this…this was different. He was a superhero now, but being hurt, he wasn’t helping anyone. Not to mention that he still couldn’t feel the symbiote, despite Dr. Connors saying before he released him from his quarantine pod that it was actually starting to grow back, slowly of course. He didn’t understand all the technical medical jargon that was used sure, but he understood enough to know that they both got hurt badly; so badly that neither of them might get back to 100%. That was his biggest fear, that he’d be stuck sidelined forever. But that’s why he hated when everyone tried to baby him; he might not have his powers, but he was still going to find a way to be useful to the team even if it killed him.

“Alright Flash,” he said under his breath once he was all situated, “Let’s go do this.”

Despite having only been in the chair for about a week at this point, he was quite adept and agile with it, especially in the smaller confines of the Parker house (that wasn’t exactly handicap accessible). It probably helped that it was a S.H.I.E.L.D. quality chair too, which meant it was rather well “enhanced”, and came standard with a low level neuro-transmitter that received signals from the chip that the doc had fitted him with before releasing him; it was a small stick-bandage-patch thing that was in the middle of his back, completely non-evasive and temporary, so he could better communicate his thoughts to the hardware and navigate it just a bit easier. Again, he didn’t understand everything that was explained, but he got that the sticker let him think to move, and he was given a tutorial on what he could and couldn’t do. So again, he wasn’t helpless by any means, but it didn’t help him feeling like he was.

As usual, once he made it far enough down the hallway, there was the usual line at the bathroom. Both Miles and Peter stood there in their pajamas; the former was leaning against the wall, arms crossed, eyes closed, and possibly back asleep, while the later was staring bleary eyed at a tablet screen, scrolling through something.

“Morning guys,” the blonde greeted; all he got was a half nod from the brunette in response, “Ben in there again?”

“Mmhmm. Guess he wasn’t lying about his chicken tacos being bad.”

Flash listened now and could just hear faintly the sounds of sickness coming from behind the closed door. This was the third day of this; the other two had missed the other two times, having come home for the weekend last night and bringing Joey Q’s for dinner. Not that it couldn’t be food poisoning sure, but then again, could you even get a bad burrito from Joey Q’s?

“I don’t know Pete,” he started to voice his concern, making the brunette look up from his work, “Last few days, Ben’s been…”

The sound of flushing cut that off as it also startled the younger boy awake.

“What, what, estoy arri…” then Miles seemed to regain his senses and remember where he was, “Uh…I miss something?”

Before either of the other two could respond the bathroom door clicked as it was unlocked then opened. Ben looked a little ashen, some small bags darkening under his bloodshot eyes. He shot the three of them an unenthusiastic look.

“Can I help you punks?” his voice was on the hoarse side, no doubt from the retching they’d heard through the door before his exit.

“Dude, you look sick. And I don’t mean in the good way.”

He shot a growl at Miles for that.

“He’s not wrong,” now it was Peter’s turn to get a death glare especially for him, “You do look pretty bad, maybe you should take a day off. I’m sure the city won’t burn to the ground if you take a nap.”

“I’m fine,” he hissed back, “Just mind your own business.”

“Dude, you were just throwing up again, you’re not fine.”

A multitude of emotions flickered through Ben at that statement from Flash; anger at being told what to do, annoyance that the Scooby Gang just wouldn’t leave him alone, fear at the fact that the blonde had heard him-on all the days, worry that he’d also been watching him and would dig to find out what was wrong, defeat because he really didn’t have the energy or desire to fight with them over this, but also the stubbornness at not willing to admit to that defeat. So he just growled, looking down, and pushing past them as he headed for his designated room.

The three watched him go, but once the door closed and the lock clicked, Peter looked back to Flash while Miles took the opportunity to sneak into the bathroom for himself.

“What did you mean by “again”?”

“That’s what I was trying to tell you before. Ben’s been here all week, but he’s been getting sick in the morning a lot. I know he has been for like the past 3 days, I don’t know about the other days cause I don’t always get up in the morning you know.”

Peter mulled that over for a moment, “Could just be the flu. He didn’t get all the vaccinations S.H.I.E.L.D. gave the rest of us after all.”

Flash nodded. “You think he’s ok?”

“I don’t know, probably,” he shrugged a little, “The guy survived Ock experimenting on him, and living in a sewer. I’m sure if he was hurting enough that he couldn’t deal with it, he’d tell us.”

“I don’t know bro, he’s pretty stubborn about that sort of stuff.”

“You’re really worried about him, huh?”

“What, no. Wait, I mean, well yeah. He’s a teammate, and the team’s gotta look out for one another you know. Watching people’s about all I’m good for right now.”

“You’re good for a lot more than that, and you know it,” he finally clicked the tablet off and gave his friend a reassuring smile, “Plus you’ll be back on your feet in no time smashing baddies as usual. So don’t sweat it.”

“Yeah, I guess,” he shrugged a bit and looked back down the hall to where the other spider had disappeared. “Awesome bros before evil foes, right?”

“Yeah Flash.”

Miles left the bathroom giving Peter his turn now.

“So…I’m gonna go get to the toaster waffles before everyone else eats them all. You want me to save you two?”

“Yeah, sure, thanks.”

Miles nodded and headed off towards the kitchen, leaving Flash sitting there waiting for his turn at the bathroom, but also still watching that door. Almost trying to will the other to come back out, but also having this nagging feeling at the back of his mind (that was probably not Venom since it was still healing?) that there was something more going on, but he just couldn’t figure out what.  
\---  
After much arguing on the way to the Triskellion, Scarlet Spider was elected to be the spider to stay behind and help oversee the transfer of Harry Osborn from S.H.I.E.L.D.’s medical bay to Oscorp. Peter wanted him to stay home if he was really sick, but after (skipping) breakfast, he was feeling much better, and after a hard reminder that they couldn’t afford to be yet another spider down with Flash sidelined, he’d relinquished his stance and let the red spider basically come to work to do the easiest task he could. That was perfectly fine with Ben actually, because he needed to get into the labs as it was.

With the other two off to go on patrol, or handle their classmates, or whatever that got them away from him, Scarlet made his way through the base towards his destination. No one gave him a second look; after all he did belong here. He had about a 45 minute window before Osborn’s men would be arriving and cleared the check points, so he had just that much time before he’d need to be in the medical bay. It was far more than enough time to get done what he needed to.

A quick check proved Connor’s main lab to be empty; no doubt he was helping with the final preparations for the transfer. He walked up to the main computer and produced a flashdrive that he quickly sunk into it; the files immediately began copying over. This week’s upload was especially important; seeing as Osborn was being taken from S.H.I.E.L.D. this was the last batch of data he could supply Ock with concerning the state of the Anti-Venom. While that was going on, he moved over to a storage cabinet, opening it, and finding several webshooters waiting. He half sighed as he rolled up his sleeve and removed the one hidden under there, replacing it with a new one.

While it was true that Scarlet Spider had the ability to spin his own webs, ever since that day when his webbing had failed, he’d been concerned about it happening again and raising more alarms. So he had at first snuck off with a set of Spiderman’s backups, until he discovered Connors’ stash in here. So now when he went to get his weekly data reports for Ock, he also replaced his webbing. No one could tell he was using inorganic webbing now; the only real way to tell would be to run a chemical analysis as it was. The only downside was that due to the shooter’s placement, he was limited in using his stingers, so as to avoid drawing attention to that, he usually only wore one at a time. On top-up day though, he made sure to have them both to ensure he’d have enough of a supply to last him. He still didn’t know what was wrong with him (though fearfully he was starting to get an idea), but he wasn’t about to confirm that there was something wrong for the others to get invested in finding out what. This morning’s run in was more than enough of a problem…

“Scarlet, what are you doing in here?”

He spun around fast (curse his spider sense for not kicking in) and found Iron Spider coming into the lab. It just had to be Cho, didn’t it? Luckily, he hadn’t noticed the computer consol; unluckily there was no way he had missed him being at the supply cabinet, and since Cho knew very well he didn’t need web shooters…

Luckily, he had always been good at coming up with a fast believable cover,

“Connors sent me to look for a data drive, couldn’t remember where he left it.”

“Ah, so you got stuck with babysitting Osborn.”

He shrugged. “Whatever, you know how Spidey’s been a mother hen since Venom got knocked out.”

The armored spider nodded, and then proceeded to head to a work station for whatever he’d originally come in here for. This was the perfect opportunity for him to get out without raising any suspicions; he couldn’t have planned it any better. So he closed the cabinet, having decidedly not “found” what he was looking for in there, and started to “look” in other logical places that the doctor might have “left” the drive, while he bought more time for the transfer to complete. 

Cho looked up from what he was doing after a few moments, “Do you need help or something?”

“No, I got this,” he made it to the computer right on time, and took back his drive, “Got it. I’ll just get out of your hair now.”

He started to leave, but the Iron Spider just felt some need to get in some more conversation it seemed,

“Hey, how is Flash doing anyways?”

He stopped in the doorway, debating his options here. If he didn’t continue the small talk, something could seem up, but if he talked too much Connors would wonder where he was, and his cover story would fall through.

“He’s…surviving. You’d know if you came around more.”

Cho looked away at that, “Yeah I know, I’ve just been busy. We need to be several steps ahead of HYDRA if we want to make sure what happened to Flash doesn’t happen again. I know you guys think I’m a robot sometimes, but I do…care.”

Oh he did NOT need to have a heartfelt moment right now, least of all with Amadeus Cho of all people, and ESPECIALLY not when the topic at hand was defeating the people he was ACTUALLY working for, in retribution for hurting the one person he’d been having very strongly mixed feelings towards.

“I get it,” he admitted truthfully, “Doesn’t mean you can’t come around to hang out though. Sometimes, you just gotta make time to be who you are behind the mask.”

Ok that was weird, he was paraphrasing Peter now…and it didn’t sound, awkward or sarcastic?

“I guess you do have a point.”

“Well, think about it. I got babysitting to do, you got…whatever that is to do.”

“Right, yes,” he nodded. “Good luck with the transfer.”

“Thanks Cho,” he nodded one last time, and then headed out of the lab for good now.


	2. Part 2

He wasn’t known for getting motion sickness, but oh god did he feel like he was going to die right now.

The Oscorp guards came, they loaded a still-in-stasis Harry Osborn into their van, paperwork was signed off on by their leaders and Connors, and then it was time to go. Scarlet Spider had elected to ride in the van, rather than travel by web following them; he claimed it was so they couldn’t “accidentally” lose him, but really he just wasn’t feeling up to web swinging. 10 minutes into the ride though, he wished he had sucked it up because he was feeling so nauseous.

The only bright side was that he had nothing left in his stomach, not that that made the feeling subside, just less threatening. It was a minimum 72 minute drive, so for the majority of it he sat with the Oscorp guards with his eyes closed, trying to keep himself from gagging. His mask hid that fact, to the dozen or so trained men just figured they had this red spider staring them all down the entire time.

When they arrived at Oscorp Tower, he was not the first one off the boat though. Oh no, he sat there and waited for his stomach to catch up to the rest of him. That made him the last one out of the van, but that made sense to the onlookers, since he was the babysitter. Norman Osborn was there, directing his people, yelling at them to be careful with his son, and other directions like that. Scarlet figured he’d just stand off to the side and watch; his only job now was to get Osborn to sign off that “yes his son had arrived in one piece not dead” and then he was free to go on his way.

He was basically just zoning out as he stood there watching the show, so he hadn’t really noticed someone slid up to him.

“Is he going to be alright?”

“I-what?” he uncrossed his arms and looked to his left and was stunned for a second at seeing the red haired young woman who knew the Parkers…Mary Jane was it? This was bad; what if she recognized his voice after their meeting?

“Harry,” she clarified, not catching his true confusion, “This isn’t the first time something like this has happened to him, and he had a hard time coming back from it then.”

“Yes, his files did say something about that.”

“I’m just worried about him. He’s one of my best friends…and the only one that seems to have stuck around.”

“I…” something panged in him; he felt a need to comfort her coming from somewhere, “I get it. Friend of mine’s doing the same right now.”

She nodded, “Then you get it. It’s not easy watching someone you love being hurt when you’re helpless.”

That struck a cord in him, and he visibly tensed. She caught that from the corner of her eye, and quickly tried to fix whatever her mistake was,

“I mean, not that you’re helpless, I mean, wow, sorry,” she tried to calm her flustered nerves, “I mean you’re…who again? The Bugle’s been calling you the Red Tarantula…”

“Seriously?” he scoffed, “It’s Scarlet Spider. I figured the red was a dead giveaway.”

“Well it was, but I guess J.J. was hoping you weren’t connected to Spiderman or something.”

“He really has it out for the webhead, doesn’t he? Any clue why?”

She shrugged. “It’s a minority opinion at the Bugle, but unfortunately it’s also the ruling one, so you know.”

“Democracy at it’s finest.”

“Try dictatorship,” she smirked a little, but then remembered herself fully and now offered her hand to him, “I’m Mary Jane Watson, intern reporter for the Daily Bugle.”

“Like I said, Scarlet Spider,” he did not shake her hand, “You’ll fix my name problem right.”

“I’ll certainly try.”

“Good.”

“Oh, you wouldn’t happen to know the name of the smaller black Spiderman would you? I don’t mean his real name obviously.”

She couldn’t really be this ditzy could she? This was a reporter’s act to try to disarm him right? Then again, she’d been a bit scattered when she was talking to Ben Reilly too…but he was a supposedly long lost cousin to her friend, so maybe she had been trying to pump him of information then too. Or she really was just this ditzy.

“Kid Arachnid.”

“Seriously? He couldn’t come up with anything better?”

He snickered a little at that. Mary Jane smirked again, hand going on her hip.

“Well thank you for the inside scoop Scarlet Spider. And thank you for making sure Harry got home safely,” her gaze went back to where Norman was supervising the placement of his son, “Norman might not express it, but he’s thankful too, I’m sure.”

“Whatever. It’s just what heroes do.”

But he wasn’t a hero…not really.

“Mary Jane!” Norman was calling her over now that the main moving team was dispersing and a doctor had moved in.

“Catch you around sometime Spider,” she gave a wink then went over.

He rolled his eyes, not that anyone would notice. Not his type, he preferred blondes after all.

After a few minutes where the doctor was apparently giving both Norman and Mary Jane the basics on how to monitor Harry, Osborn seemed to realize that the spider was still there, so he excused himself to come to him.

“Why exactly are you still here?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D. protocol,” he produced a small tablet, “Need a signature that the delivery was completed.”

“S.H.I.E.L.D uhhu,” Norman mumbled, but he took the device and scribbled on it with a stylus before handing it back to him, “If that’s all, I would appreciate it if you would leave my property post haste.”

“No problem Mr. Osborn, consider me already gone.”

Norman didn’t even wait to make sure the red spider left, he was already heading back towards his son. Scarlet was fine with that, he just saw himself out with no sweat. 

Outside was another matter entirely. One could not really walk down a New York street dressed as a red super spider…well ok, actually one could, but he really didn’t want to (because apparently he wasn’t popular enough for people to get his name right, let alone for anyone wanting to rip off his look for a cosplay or whatever those nerds called it). So he let loose a web line and pulled himself up into the air, earning a few pedestrians going “whoa look at that!” at least. 

He only managed to make it a couple of blocks though before his webbing decided to stop again.

“No, no not now!” he growled, trying to save himself with the webshooter now, but it only fizzled out, “Are you kidding me?! You jam now of all times??!”

The buildings and the ground were coming up fast, he had barely half a second to turn himself enough to avoid hitting the main parts of a fire escape, but just as he crashed into a dumpster, the lid slammed shut and the whole thing slid to the side, hitting the legs of the rusty old metal framing, and the fire escape came crashing down on top of the metal box of refuse. 

He groaned, uncurling from a ball, feeling the pain in his back that had taken the brunt of the fall. Everything was hurting, everything screamed in pain at him (though his stomach seemed quiet). He gave his head a few minutes to try to clear up, to get through all the pain fog. Someone had to have heard that crash right? Breathing hurt, moving hurt, thinking hurt, everything still hurt. But he had to get moving, he had to get out of this dumpster. He was conscious, and that was good, but it wasn’t enough. Nothing felt broken, everything just felt battered and bruised, and hurt.

“This day is officially horrible,” he groaned.

He had to move, he had to get up, and he had to go. But as he tried to sit up, a sharp stabbing pain tore through him and he recoiled back with a painful growl. Something felt wrong, but he couldn’t tell what; everything hurt, but something was screaming that it was wrong.

Something made a sound from outside the dumpster, metal scrapping against metal. As the sharp pain, the wrong feeling, subsided, he started to notice it and began to uncurl again. It almost sounded like someone was outside…

“Is anyone out there?” he called out.

“Hold on!” came the reply.

Well, seems someone had seen or at least noticed him crashing down; he wasn’t entirely sure if that was a good or a bad thing in the long run, but right now he was internally thankful for it.

At last the sounds stopped and after a beat the top of the dumpster was opened, revealing a dark haired teenage girl looking down at him.

“Boy, you look like a mess,” she wrinkled her nose at the sight and smell of him, “You’re lucky it’s not trash day.”

He growled a little, but he wasn’t above taking the offered hand up and out of the metal box. Loose garbage fell off of him as he climbed out, but it didn’t matter. Once he was free though, it was a surprise to see all of the broken fire escape that now littered the alley; there was no way that all of that had fallen on him, was there? Half of that stuff looked to weigh more than this girl, and she was the only one here.

“What, no thank you?” her scoff brought him back to what was going on at hand. “A girl saves your life, and you don’t even offer to buy her a hot dog, wow.”

She looked to be in her later teens, and her clothes were well worn. The band t-shirt was faded past “trendy distressing” and more from actual wearing, as well as being nearly see through, but luckily the black tanktop under it left some things to the imagination. A well worn gray hoodie also provided some cover and protection; the ripped through thumb holes though drew the eye to her scratched up knuckles more than it should have. Her shoes were held together with ducktape, her jeans torn through in several stress points. Her dark hair was loose and looked like it hadn’t been brushed recently, but it framed her dark brown eyes well. Not as dirty as one would expect a street kid to be, but clearly not as well kept as someone with a regular washing machine or shower would be. She also had the attitude and aura about her that just said “don’t mess with me”. And yet, something seemed thinly familiar about her…

“I’m sorry, what?”

“You hit your head too wannabe?”

“I’m not, I didn’t,” he looked around again now, “How did…?”

“I’m stronger than I look,” she shrugged, shoving her hands into her jeans pockets, “So about that hot dog.”

“Look, I appreciate the assist…however it happened, but I don’t exactly have pockets in this suit-”

“It’s ok, I know a guy who takes Paypal.”

“Look, lady, I don’t-”

“Ew, _lady_ , are you serious wannabe?”

He growled, “Sorry, I must have missed the introduction portion of this meeting.”

“It’s a rescue dude, I just pulled your butt out of a dumpster that you epically failed into ok, and all I want is a hot dog out of the deal.”

“Look,” he growled, getting frustrated beyond belief by this girl; he held his head, trying to ignore all of the aches he knew he’d be feeling for the next few days, “If you give me your name, I can get S.H.I.E.L.D. to do something-”

“Yeah, no, that’s not going to work,” she blew some loose hair out of her face, taking a second to think, “Ok, I got an idea. C’mon wannabe,” and she started walking away.

Did she seriously think he was going to follow her? Why would he? This was ridiculous. He should just swing away and…The webshooter was still blocked, and his webbing was still being uncooperative. So unless he really wanted to hoof it, and this strange girl could probably over take him at this point if he was going to be honest about how he was feeling; there wasn’t anywhere to go.

“Hey!” she back tracked and looked at him expectedly, “You coming, or am I gonna shove you back into the sardine can?”

Scarlet growled, from both annoyance and ache, but he followed her now. She waited for him to get to her before she started walking again.

“Where are we?”

“New York stupid.”

He glared at her, but the mask didn’t convey the same sentiment, “I know that much. Not exactly local here.”

“I could tell,” she scoffed, “The real Spiderman knows what he’s doing.”

“I never said I was Spiderman.”

“Your tights say otherwise.”

Before he could shoot back a retort, she stopped and held him back with a shush. He looked around, but the street was fairly empty for the most part.

“Ok, so you see that sign for Tony’s Pizzaria, right?”

He did, it was pretty hard to miss.

“Tony’s a big Spider-nerd, so you’re gonna go in, do some web stuff, and I’m gonna get some pizza, you got that.”

“But I’m not Spiderman.”

“So what? Lie to the guy, I don’t care. You got webs, make it spidery, pizza all around.”

This was stupid, why was he doing this again? When he didn’t seem to be going along with her plan, the girl grabbed him quite forcefully by the arm and literally dragged him with her; the force was hard and he would have yelped in surprise if he hadn’t stopped himself. This girl was stronger than she seemed!

“Ok,” she set him just out of sight of the main window, “You stay here, count to 30, then come in and be Spiderman, deal.”

“And why exactly should I do this anyways?”

“Because I saved your butt back there,” when that didn’t seem to fly, she tried another tactic, “Because you’re supposed to be a “good guy” and they help people who need pizza.”

“By the same logic, your “good guy” wouldn’t lie to get free food either,” he shot back snarkily.

“Ok, then how about this,” she looked at him darkly, and wasn’t shy about sending a punch at the brick wall just to the side of them, which left quite a nice crack in the red stone and mortar, “How about you do it, or next time it’ll be you?”

The threat didn’t go past him, and right now, it was a very viable threat. But he wouldn’t let her know that. So he just narrowed his eyes at her, his words a little hissing to show his annoyance,

“You’re lucky I’m not really the webhead, because that would never fly with him.”

“Well then it’s both our lucky days,” she smirked as she backed away from him, “Remember, count of 30, then come in, and act like Spiderman.”

Oh he was gonna do his best Peter Parker for sure, whether this worked or not was another matter entirely. But she would get what she asked for.

A bell rang as the door to the pizzeria opened and closed. The owner, a middle-aged Italian man looked up, but his enthusiasm for a customer faded once he realized who it was.

“Oh no Jones, no hand outs, you know the rules.”

“C’mon Tony, you know we’re friends,” she tried to smooth talk, walking up to the counter, “We go way back. Remember, you remember.”

“I remember you throwing my ice machine through the front window 3 months ago.”

“Wow, I thought old guys lost their memories fast, but you’re sharp as ever.”

“Get out Jones!”

“Hey, hey, now wait up,” she held up her hand in defense, “You said if I got Spiderman to walk through the door, you’d give me free pizza for a month, remember?”

“That was a joke Jones, now you need to-”

“Ah, nope, verbal contracts are binding in New York Tony, and you know what that means,” she smirked as the bell rang again, “Time to pay up,” and she turned with a wave of her arm, drawing the restaurant owner’s attention to the black and red spider that had just walked into his shop, “Tony, Spiderman.”

“That’s not Spiderman,” the man huffed.

Scarlet just crossed his arms; she could feel the “told you so” look he was giving her from behind that mask.

“Dressing your street kids up in bad Halloween costumes won’t get you urchins free food. Now get out, the both of you, before I call the cops.”

“Tony, c’mon, I swear-”

Bad Halloween costume?? That made Scarlet forget messing with Peter’s image, or screwing with the girl. Thankfully while he’d been waiting outside, he’d managed to unjam one of the web shooters, so he now shot off a web net that caught up the guy and pinned him to the wall. He and the girl seemed surprised by that.

“Holy-how?” the guy squeaked out.

“Sorry about that,” he tried to keep his voice lighter, mimicking Peter the best he could, “Was out testing this new stealth suit, you know, for S.H.I.E.L.D. and all, when this little lady flagged me down and told me about your charitable donation offer. So of course I had to come and thank you in person, because as you know, helping out the homeless youth population is a very important and worthwhile endeavor.”

“Oh, I, um, yes of course Spiderman,” he tried his best to look to the girl, “Jessie, you leave me the number to that shelter of yours ok, and I’ll call and we’ll get something going.”

“That’d be great Tony,” she plastered on a sickly sweet grin, then went around the counter for a pen and wrote the number down on a napkin, “It ok if I grab a slice now while I’m back here for the road?”

“Yes, of course. You too Spiderman, please.”

He didn’t want any, but the girl was already grabbing it, so whatever. She walked back around, two slices of pizza in hand.

“You good?” he half asked her.

She gave a thumbs up as she was in mid bite on one slice.

“Good, then we can go,” and he turned to walk away.

“W-wait, aren’t you going to get me down from here?”

“The webbing will dissolve in a few hours,” he tossed over his shoulder.

She followed him, but she turned back and shot the old man with her pointer finger and with a wink before she followed the spider out, letting the door bell ring one last time. Out on the street he looked her over as she tore into her pizza, clearly hungry; the thought of food made him want to turn in on himself, but he’d deal with that later.

“So Jessie Jones huh?”

She swallowed then shrugged, blowing her hair out of her eyes, “Jessica, but yeah. How’d you know about the shelter and stuff?”

“Not hard to figure out, also he sort of implied,” he rest his hands on his hips, “You know, if you’d opened with that instead of strong-arming me, I would’ve done it.”

“No you wouldn’t have,” she snorted flatly.

“You’re probably right. So can I go now?”

“Dude, what was stopping you before?”

This girl…this girl was a piece of work. He couldn’t help but admire that a bit. He’d have to remember her for later…if there was a later after all, depending upon what HYDRA did once it had its way.

“Scarlet Spider.”

“Mwha?” she again had a mouthful of food going on.

“I’m Scarlet Spider.”

She swallowed, “Yeah, I really don’t care.”

“Yeah, whatever,” he rolled his eyes, and turned to go, “Just stay out of trouble and quit destroying public property,” he shot off a web line with the functioning webshooter and swung into the air.

“Ha, yeah right! Only if you stop crashing in dumpsters wannabe!” she called after him, playfully though.

He just rolled his eyes at that. But before he swung around the corner, he looked back to see her walking deeper into the neighborhood. And that’s when it struck him where they were; they were on the edge of Hell’s Kitchen.


	3. Part 3

It had been a rather quiet afternoon at the Parker house. After the other guys had left, May had stuck around for a few hours before she went off to run some errands. Despite her offer for him to come along, Flash had elected to stay behind; he claimed it was so he could catch up on America's Next Top Wonder, but honestly he had finished binge watching that days ago. There wasn't much to do around the house after all, and he didn't really feel like going out in public with the chair. Plus the daily grind felt so...ordinary after his life of superheroing. So yeah, days spent binge watching bad sitcoms on the couch were the norm these days. He couldn't help but feel like he was ending up just like everyone said he would now...

There came a small crash from the next room. He perked up at that, looking over the back of the couch,

“Who's there?”

There wasn't a response, just possibly some shuffling. It wasn't anywhere near the front door, plus May would have answered him. It could've been one of the guys, but they really should have answered him too...unless they hadn't heard him. So he grumbled, turning off his show, and then pulled himself back into his chair so he could go see what's going on over there.

Door to one of the bedrooms was open now, so he cautiously made his approach. Peeking in it wasn't hard to miss seeing Scarlet Spider standing with his back to the open door, gingerly peeling off his suit. Thick fresh nasty looking bruises molted his skin, and were only proven to be as painful as they looked by the hissing each movement caused him to let out.

"Oh bro, that looks nasty."

Ben practically jumped at hearing him; he had assumed he was alone, that he was safe.

"Flash! What are you...?”

"I live here remember," he came closer, trying to get a better look at the injuries, but that made the other retreat a little, "Dude, you should go see the doc about this."

"It’s fine."

"What happened?"

"Nothing."

"Dude, Ben, c'mon."

"It was nothing," he growled a little warningly, "You know how the job is."

Flash wasn't happy with that response, but he wasn't going to press it. "Stay put," then he backed up out of the room.

Ben wasn't sure what to make of that, various parts of him telling him to just cut and run now despite how much he was hurting. But before he could make up his mind about that, the blonde was back with various first aid supplies in his lap.

“What do you think you’re doing?”

“Here, hold these,” he tried to foster the first aid supplies onto the red spider so he could pull himself out of the chair and up onto the bed.

Ben took the stuff, and continued to watch him with confusion. “Again I ask, Flash what do you think you’re doing?”

“Sit,” he pat the spot in front of him on the bed to punctuate the command.

“I don’t…”

“Dude, you’re banged up badly, and it’ll be a whole lot easier on you if you let someone patch you up, rather than you trying to do it yourself.”

“I’m quite capable of handling it myself you know. I don’t need-” 

“You’re just gonna pull and tear more stuff trying to reach around,” his tone was firm in a “there’s no way to talk yourself out of this so do as I say” way, “Trust me, I know, I’ve been there. So sit down, and let me help, cause believe it or not, I actually do know what I’m doing here.”

He wanted to argue, he didn’t want to be this weak and vulnerable around anyone, he wanted to be left alone to lick his wounds and curl up in his own misery as usual. But he didn’t. He was just so tired, and aching so much, and Flash was there…wanting him…wanting to help him…So he sat as he was instructed.

“Good, now gimme that and turn your back to me so I can clean some of these cuts.”

It was…strange, to say the least, the feeling of the blonde roughly at first, but after he flinched a second time from the pressure alone, gently using an alcohol pad to swab at the few cuts and scrapes he’d somehow gotten in the fall. The alcohol burned, but he only hissed once, too focused with his eyes closed on tracing his touches in his mind. Flash worked thoroughly, yet surprisingly carefully, not only cleaning the cuts but also feeling for any unseen damages.

“You look like you took on three linebackers and a gorilla all at once.”

“More like a rickety fire escape and a dumpster.”

“Why’d you go and do that?”

“Oh you know, way to meet girls apparently.”

“What?”

“Never mind,” he brushed it off then hissed sharply, pulling away as he hit a rather painful spot along his side.

“Sorry, sorry,” he threw his hands up defensively as he moved a little away too incase the spider reflexively struck out, “I’m not a doctor, but I’m gonna bet you got a cracked rib or two.”

“Gee, you think,” he still hissed, even though he wasn’t really angry at him for it, it was more the surprise, and now the sudden jerking that caused him to hurt more.

“Dude you should really go see the doc about this.”

“I’ll be fine, don’t worry about it.”

“Dude.”

“I’m not like you Flash,” he hadn’t meant that to come out as harsh as it did, so he looked away with a bit of a sigh under his breath, “I’m not…built the same way. I can take a beating and come back from it in a day, two tops. I’ve come back from much worse with minimal scars, so don’t…don’t worry about it.”

Flash looked him over, noticing the light scars dotting his torso, the little thin white lines in the middle of all the purple and red splotches. He couldn’t help a feeling that that wasn’t entirely what he meant when he said that, but he wasn’t going to push it; he knew what it was like to not want to talk about some bad private stuff with people, even though now he knew it would help, you just had to get to that point on your own.

“Ben, we’re teammates, so yeah I’m gonna worry,” he picked up the roll of gauze from his lap and started to unroll it a bit, “Don’t need you getting benched like me.”

“You’ll get back,” his thought process interrupted as he realized the other teen was going to start wrapping the gauze around his torso; he lifted an arm so he could pass the roll around more easily, breath catching for a moment as he felt him pressed against his back, “Get back in the field in no time.”

“Yeah, I don’t know.”

“Venom’s resilient, and so are you,” he flinched a little as the roll passed again over the already proven to be cracked rib, “You will survive this.”

He couldn’t help the slight chuckle at that, “Wow, that’s about the sappiest thing anyone’s said to me lately.”

Ben rolled his eyes, before closing them.

“But also the nicest.”

He opened his eyes at that, and at the fact that he couldn’t feel him moving anymore. There was a light breath against the crook of his neck, he could feel the other’s chest against his back, as well as the one arm that had been guiding the gauze around paused across him with the other hand resting on his hip. His breath caught as his heart skipped a beat; what was going on, what was he doing, what was he thinking???

“Flash…” he started to ask tentatively after he didn’t move.

“Sorry bro,” his tone was low and…glazed over? “For a second there you just smelled, not to sound weird, but sorta-hey!”

Ben moved fast at that, the shot of adrenaline and fear blocking out the pain as he got up and spun away, even pushing the blonde away. Flash was startled and confused by his actions; but he didn’t look hazed, that was good, there was still time…

“Get out.”

“Dude, what? Sorry, I didn’t mean-”

“I said out!”

“Ben, I-!”

He growled in frustration, “Fine I’ll leave then!”

The spider left the room as quickly as he could to go and locked himself in the bathroom. Flash tried to go after him, but the task of climbing back into the chair, and then navigating out of the room was a process. That gave Ben enough time though; as soon as the door was locked and he was relatively safe, he fell into sitting on the closed toilet, face in his hands as he tried to calm himself down.

It was far too early for his heat to have started, wasn’t it? He couldn’t check his calendar…but his mental math said it was. But this was the first time he’d stuck around someone who’d been affected by his pheromones previously; could Flash be more susceptible to him now? 

“Ben, c’mon bro!” there was banging at the bathroom door now. “Come out man.”

“Go away Flash!”

“C’mon, you’re still hurt. Let me just-”

“I will handle it myself!”

Flash sighed, running his hand over his face, “Look, I wasn’t like, trying anything I swear. I don’t, I mean I’m not, I…ok let me put it this way…”

“I don’t care,” his voice inadvertently cracked at that, “Just leave me alone.”

Flash sighed, debating for a moment on what he should do, staring at the solid closed door between them. There really wasn’t much he could do all things considered. He turned away, planning to head back towards the tv in the living room.

“I’m sorry Ben,” and he went.

Inside the bathroom, the teenager there just shook his head, resting back as the spike of adrenaline was wearing off and the aches and pains in his body came back in full force.

“I’m sorry too Flash…”


End file.
